BRUSSELS — NATO’s 28 member states must quickly endorse U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendation to send reinforcements to Afghanistan because time is not on the alliance’s side, its chief said today.
But Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he doesn’t expect NATO defense ministers to discuss such steps at their meeting this week in Bratislava, Slovakia. He said it “makes sense” to delay such decisions until the final results of Afghanistan’s disputed presidential elections are known.
“I hope that we will have a clarification of the political situation in Afghanistan, because time is not on our side,” he said.
“There is a need for rapid decisions (but) it’s important to stress that there is a strong need for the international community to have a credible and accountable government in Kabul to deal with.”
President Barack Obama’s administration is studying a set of recommendations by McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for thousands more troops to end the eight-year war and the escalating insurgency.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to brief the allies in Bratislava about the progress of the review of McChrystal’s document.
“We need a general agreement on … an endorsement of the approach set out by Gen. McChrystal,” Fogh Rasmussen told reporters.
He said it was not realistic to hope that the Taliban will prevent al-Qaida from re-establishing itself in Afghanistan. “Afghanistan needs to be made strong enough to resist insurgency if it is to be able to resist terrorism,” he said.
U.S. officials in Washington say the general is asking for up to 80,000 more troops. But he has warned that rampant government corruption in Kabul may ultimately prevent victory against the Taliban rebels.
NATO currently has about 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, of which 32,000 are Americans. The U.S. military also has about 36,000 additional soldiers there serving outside NATO under a separate command.
Fogh Rasmussen appealed to NATO countries to do more to train and expand the Afghan security forces, which currently number 94,000 troops supported by a similar number of police. Current plans call for the army to expand to 134,000 by next October, but NATO commanders have suggested that more Afghan soldiers will be needed to take over combat duties from the international forces.
“If we want to be able to do less later, we have to invest more now,” he said.
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